Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
By listening — you come to understand the great forces of the universe (Shiva, Brahma and Indra).
By listening — even someone known for speaking harshly and cruelly finds themselves singing praises. Something softens. Something opens.
By listening — the secrets of spiritual practice, the mysteries of the body, the wisdom of the ancient texts — all open up to you.
For those who are devoted — there is constant blossoming. Like a flower that opens not by force but simply by receiving light.
By listening — suffering dissolves. The weight of wrong actions lifts.
This pauri continues the Suniai sequence. Guru Nanak gets specific — naming the great Hindu deities and the most revered ancient texts of India. As in Pauri 5, he names Shiva, Brahma and Indra — not to endorse any specific form of worship, but to say: the deepest understanding of what these figures point at comes through genuine listening, not through ritual or inherited belief. Every tradition's wisdom becomes accessible to the person who truly listens.
The line about people with "foul mouths" singing praises is one of the most hopeful in all of Japji. It suggests that deep listening has a purifying effect — not in a moralistic sense, but in a natural one. When you truly receive the nature of the oneness, harsh speech simply loses its grip. You don't need to force yourself to be kinder. Understanding does the work.
The repeating refrain — Nanak bhagtaa sadaa vigaas — for those who are devoted, there is constant blossoming — is worth sitting with across all four Suniai pauris. Vigaas means blossoming, blooming, flowering. It is not a dramatic transformation. It is the quiet, steady opening of something that was always there — like a flower that blooms not by force but by simply receiving light.
This is also what makes reciting Japji come alive. The words point at something real, and Suniai is how their meaning sinks in and becomes part of you. Recited with deep listening, the same words open up a little more each time.
Has a song, a story, or something someone said ever shifted something inside you — not because you tried to learn from it, but because it just landed? What was that like?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI